Rufino del Carmen Arellanes Tamayo (August 25, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico.

[3] As a student, he experimented with and was influenced by Cubism, Impressionism and Fauvism, among other popular art movements of the time, but with a distinctly Mexican feel.

[citation needed] Rufino Tamayo, along with other muralists such as Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, represented the twentieth century in their native country of Mexico.

He expressed what he envisioned as traditional Mexico and eschewed the overt political art of such contemporaries as José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

[citation needed] Tamayo came to feel that he could not freely express his art; he, therefore, decided in 1926 to leave Mexico and move to New York City.

Prior to his departure, Tamayo organized a one-man show of his work in Mexico City where he was noticed for his individuality.

[citation needed] Tamayo's legacy in the history of art lies in his oeuvre of original graphic prints in which he cultivated every technique.

With the help of Mexican printer and engineer Luis Remba, Tamayo expanded the technical and aesthetic possibilities of the graphic arts by developing a new medium which they named Mixografia.

[10] It not only registered the texture and volume of Rufino Tamayo's design but also granted the artist freedom to use any combination of solid materials in its creation.

The LEAR was an organization in which Mexican artists could express through painting and writing their responses towards the revolutionary war and governmental policies than are current in Mexico.

Although Tamayo did not agree with Siqueiros and Orozco, they were chosen along with four others to represent their art in the first American Artists' Congress in New York.

However, he often painted his wife Taide Olga Flores Rivas Zárate[14][15] showing her struggles through color choices and facial expressions.

The shared difficulties of painter and wife can be seen in the portrait Rufino and Olga, circa 1934, where the couple appears broken by life's obstacles.

María Izquierdo, a fellow Mexican artist with whom he lived with for a time, taught Tamayo precision in his color choices.

[9] In a 1926 exhibition, 39 of Tamayo's works were displayed at the Weyhe Gallery in New York just a month after his arrival into the United States.

On June 12, 1991, Tamayo was admitted to Mexico City's National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition for respiratory and heart failure.

[19] Tamayo's 1970 painting Tres Personajes was bought by a Houston man as a gift for his wife in 1977, then stolen from their storage locker in 1987 during a move.

After seeing the Missing Masterpieces segment about Tres Personajes, Gibson and the former owner arranged to sell the painting at a Sotheby's auction.